The Colts, the 49ers and the near-impossibility of “tanking” for Andrew Luck

* 49ers-Seattle set up: Pete Carroll was out on the field for the entirely of early warm-ups, tossing a football around and having a long chat with 49ers DC Vic Fangio. Jim Harbaugh hasn’t come out yet. I didn’t see Tom Cable, either.

–Just because the Colts look all-time horrendous right now, I’m not assumign that they’re going 0-16 this season.

Of course, Indy might go 0-16. Without Peyton Manning, and WITH Kerry Collins, that’s an earnest possibility at this point.

But I’d say 2-14 or 3-13 is more likely, and even if Manning is healthy enough to give it a go by December, it’d be useless for the Colts to push him out there in the middle of that kind of debacle.
The Colts will be consistently awful this year.

So the Colts clearly have seized the early lead in the race for the No. 1 overall pick in next year’s draft, which is, naturally, realistically the race for the right to draft Andrew Luck.

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And unless you really believe the 49ers are looking at 3-13 this year, I’d say that any stray consideration that the 49ers could tank to get the No. 1 overall is now out the window.

I never thought they’d do anything of the sort, of course.

They have a stadium to try to finance, they have tickets they need to sell right now, and they’ve already sunk $25M into Jim Harbaugh and that cash isn’t meant to lose often and immediately.

Plus, any loss from here on out goes on Harbaugh’s record forever, and coaches are notoriously sensitive about things like that.

The majority of NFL careers last 3 or 4 seasons on average, and they’re not in the business of throwing away a season (possibly 33% of their career) just to get into proper drafting position.

That the Colts could end up getting, anyway.

So if even if the 49ers TRY to stink (they may stink accidentally), they could end up at 4-12–especially in the bad NFC West–and get the second, third or fourth pick, and that’s hardly worth another full year of lousiness.

They’re not in the Luck derby. At least, they shouldn’t try to be.

–That darn Cam Inman (twitter: @CamInman) just made a great point: What if Luck follows the Stanford lead of John Elway, who infamously refused to go to the Colts after they drafted him No. 1 and used his contract with the Yankees to get himself to Denver instead?

Luck isn’t that kind of guy, but an interesting point by Inman. Whoever he is.

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One other issue with a indy/elway type deal with luck is that Bob Irsay is dead….and indy is now a decent franchise. If it is Cincy or Buffalo however ….well let’s just say if I was Luck or his family or his agent I certainly would not think that it would be a smart career move to sign with those teams….I might even add Oakland to the list …

Kely

Why on earth would Luck not want to go to Indy and learn from Manning for a couple of years? It worked out well for Aaron Rodgers.

Niners in 2012

If the Niners lose today I’m ALL ABOARD… the tank.

Threeputt

Hey now! Before you go awarding the first pick in the draft to Indy, you’d better consider some of the other teams who showed their mettle this morning. Kansas City is getting stomped and badly by the Buffalo Bills, Purdy’s pick for the worst team in the league. Tennessee looks lost against a weak Jacksonville team. and what in the world is going on with the Atlanta Falcons and the Pittsburgh Steelers?

Grey Warden

If the Colts tank, it would be a brilliant move if they were to get Luck with the #1 pick. They’d be playoff and/or super bowl contenders for a long time to come.

Grey Warden

How about Cam Newton going for 422 passing yards today? Pretty impressive for a rookie debut.

Gadzooks

Stupid article. Just stupid.

Limekiller

Uh, what exactly is stupid about the article? He makes 2 points:

1) The colts are going to STINK this year. This is true.

2) The 49ers shouldn’t try tanking to draft Luck, because they’d probably fail, since they’re in the NFC Worst. Also true.

Given that both items are 100% true, I fail to detect stupidity here.

Now, you may disagree about the Colts being the WORST team in Football, that’s certainly debatable, but them sucking? That’s a slam dunk.

Nukea$finest

It just goes to show how valuable a great QB is. Remember how quickly the 49ers went from SB contender to lottery team after Steve Young went down.

bullship

Well …..Seattle looked awful today.

So did Cleveland…..

I am not sure there is a 3-13 team out there….4-12…5-11 probably…..so it will be a race for luck….

Gadzooks

Stupid because:

1. It’s ridiculous/idiotic/stupid to think the Niners will have the worst record in football. Last year the same team under the worst head coach in recent NFL history won 6 games.

Gadzooks, did you even bother to READ the article? Did you miss the following paragraphs?
“Plus plus, players don’t care about No. 1 overall picks. They want to win. They will win some games this year–Patrick Willis, Frank Gore, Vernon Davis, etc. The majority of NFL careers last 3 or 4 seasons on average, and they’re not in the business of throwing away a season (possibly 33% of their career) just to get into proper drafting position.”

Whoops. Reading comprehension…

Gadzooks

I don’t think you know what “tank” means.

Mr Kawakami believes there was/is a chance of the Niners doing it.

That’s moronic.

Means stupid.

Limekiller

No, he DIDN’T think there was a chance the 49ers would do it, or he wouldn’t have said what he did about it.

But I know lots of FANS who were hoping for it, to be honest. I’ve heard more than one call from fans for them to tank and draft Luck. Tim was reminding people that it was an idiotic notion, and that even if they DID try, it probably wouldn’t work anyway.

Thomas Foolery

Kawakami: “I never thought they’d do anything of the sort, of course.”